Back to School at Columbia: Two Students Arrested, New Guidelines on Protest

Columbia University’s school year began this week with New York Police Department officers arresting two students in front of campus at a pro-Palestine demonstration. 

At the rally on Tuesday, dozens of students marched along a metal barricade in front of the Morningside campus, continuing their calls from the prior year for the school to divest from companies with ties to Israel amid the country’s war in Gaza and continued occupation of the West Bank — the same cause that drove the encampments and occupation of Hamilton Hall in the spring, which resulted in mass arrests and student suspensions. 

The NYPD said officers arrested two 21-year-old protesters who were held on suspicion of misdemeanors: obstructing governmental administration, disorderly conduct, attempted obstruction, and attempted disorderly conduct. Both were later released with tickets ordering their appearance to court.

The Intercept independently confirmed that both arrested protesters were students of the university. Among those arrested was an organizer with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, which previously led negotiations with administrators over possible economic divestment and academic boycotts, which the school ultimately rejected in April.

The Columbia chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine said on social media that NYPD officers “were extremely aggressive with students, shoving protestors against the barricades” and claimed “excessive force” was used against a student. One video shared on Instagram showed a scuffle between officers and students, resulting in one student to fall over onto the pavement. Organizers claimed administrators had called on the NYPD to make the arrests.

An NYPD spokesperson told The Intercept that officers were aware of the planned protest before it began. It was unclear whether the school had notified police of the demonstration.

Columbia declined to comment on the student arrests, citing the fact that they occurred off-campus — by a few feet — and instead referred to the NYPD. 

Earlier on Tuesday, a bucket of red paint had been splashed on the school’s Alma Mater statue. The paint was cleaned later that afternoon. 

A separate demonstration took place on Wednesday as a group of students held a sit-in at the School of International and Public Affairs protesting against a class taught there by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Organizers called Clinton a “war criminal,” citing her record in the Middle East, including arms deals to Saudi Arabia amid its brutal bombing campaign of Yemen in 2015 and 2016, during which more than 19,000 civilians have been killed, prompting war crime allegations. The group of 20 to 30 students sat in the building’s lobby, holding signs that read “Long Live Hind’s Hall” and “There Are No Universities Left in Gaza,” then left after two hours.  

A Columbia spokesperson said the university had “followed its response protocols as planned regarding protests” and that two school delegates were there and spoke with demonstrators. The school said Clinton’s class began on time and ended without disruption. 

The brief sit-in was perhaps the first demonstration on campus of the school year and the university’s first test of its new guidelines around protests on campus. 

Across the U.S., schools have prepared for the start of class with additional measures to curb protest. The University of California system banned encampments, blocking walkways and face coverings on its campuses amid pressure from the state legislature. At the University of Michigan, administrators passed new rules around student misconduct complaints, drawing free speech concerns from the American Civil Liberties Union. And New York University updated its student code of conduct to make speaking out against Zionism a potential violation of the school’s nondiscrimination policies.  

Additional measures to curb protests have been put in place at Columbia as well. Access to campus is limited to people with school IDs or prearranged visiting permission. Photos shared on social media showed fencing surrounding more of the campus green spaces, similar to measures taken at the University of Pennsylvania. 

But unlike other major universities that faced student protest last year, Columbia faculty, administrators, and students decided to double down on the existing rulebook. 

Members of the rules committee of Columbia’s University Senate — which is made up of faculty, administrators, and students — spent the summer updating its guidelines. The new guidelines do not change the existing rules but are intended to clarify their interpretation, addressing where and how protests can take place, what speech and actions constitute harassment, and how to sanction students who violate the rules. 

Students who were arrested on suspicion of taking part in encampments or the Hamilton Hall occupation in the spring continue to face possible discipline, including expulsion, and the University Senate has criticized school administrators for their handling of those cases, calling out cases where the university violated its own rules on sanctions or due process.

The school has also been the target of the Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce, which recently subpoenaed Columbia for records related to the protests, including communication among administrators in handling of encampments, meeting minutes from the board of trustees, and documentation of alleged antisemitic incidents on campus. The committee repeatedly accuses the school of not punishing students severely enough in public statements.  

The Council on American-Islamic Relations on Thursday sent a letter to Columbia, decrying the subpoena as an attempt to chill student’s free speech and called on the school to “not give in” to the House committee’s McCarthy-ist efforts to target students. They warned turning over student records would expose the school to liability. Gadeir Abbas, an attorney representing CAIR, said the subpoena is an attempt to force “the disclosure of the names of pro-Palestinian students at the school.”

“The House Committee’s subpoena is a violation of the First Amendment, and Columbia University will become an accomplice to the violation to the extent it complies,” said Abbas in a statement. 

Student groups such as Columbia University Apartheid Divest and Students for Justice in Palestine, which had their Instagram account permanently banned amid Meta’s crackdown on the use of the term “Zionist,” vowed to continue to protest throughout the school year. 

“It’s back to school season in both Gaza and in New York — but while we are privileged enough to move into our dorms ready for the new school year, 715,000 Gazan children receive their education in the form of airstrikes,” read a statement from Columbia University Apartheid Divest posted online prior to Tuesday’s demonstration. “The bombs falling on the heads of our people in Gaza are not just American-made. Their very production is facilitated by Columbia University’s investments in the imperial war machine.”

The group listed companies Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Caterpillar Inc., and General Electric as corporations with direct ties to both Columbia’s endowment and Israel. They also point out that certain members of the school’s board of trustees, which controls the school’s endowment, also sit on the boards of Lockheed Martin, BlackRock, and Heico, which all conduct business with the Israeli government and military.

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